Highly conductive phases have been generated on different polytypes of SiC substrates using a laser direct-write technique. Incorporation of both n-type and p-type impurities into the SiC substrates was accomplished by laser irradiation in dopant-containing ambients. X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy have been used to detect the presence of the dopant atoms and the compositional variation induced by laser irradiation. Scanning electron microscopy was used to study the microstructure, morphology and dimensions of the converted regions. The conversion in electric resistance has been attributed to both structural and compositional variations observed for the irradiated tracks (c) 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.